Birmingham City: Carson Yeung must keep faith in Alex McLeish - defender

Sep 4 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

CARSON Yeung was today advised to leave alone Blues’ present management and coaching staff when he assumes power.

Yeung’s takeover remains on course to be completed in around five weeks.

He and his associates have stressed that they have no plans to remove Alex McLeish from his post, nor do they intend on interfering in his day-to-day running of teams affairs from Wast Hills.

But two years ago when Yeung first bought into Blues, Steve Bruce ended up leaving for Wigan Athletic for a number of reasons.

As the takeover attempt back then dragged on, eventually to collapse, Bruce felt he was better off out of it.

Yeung had given him personal assurances that his job was safe, but he wasn’t keen to wait and see after being unable to land a new contract.

Bookmakers laying odds on the first Premier League manager to lose his job or be sacked have installed McLeish among the favourites since it was announced that David Sullivan, David Gold and Ralph Gold decided to sell their controlling interest to Yeung.

The view from the dressing room is that McLeish should not be replaced.

Roger Johnson, one of McLeish’s major summer signings, said: “It’s a key we keep the manager and the staff we’ve got here.

“He has built the squad we’ve got here, and he’s still trying to improve it. Just because there’s a takeover, why should that mean you change the manager?

“We have got a good coaching staff here, a good backroom team, the lads are great.